Street Fighter IV - Review
It’s been a long time coming and Japanese players have been enjoying it in the arcades for quite some time, but the sequel to Street Fighter III has finally landed on home consoles, sporting 3D graphics, new gameplay mechanics, new characters and online play has the wait been worth it?
Street Fighter IV’s arcade mode has a loose storyline to give reasons for all of the contestants to enter the tournament. Some characters are tied to the main plot; some are just joining for personal reasons such as finding something out or reuniting with an old friend or rival. These storylines are told with short anime intro and endings for each of the characters. Whilst the animation of these segments aren’t the greatest works of animation, they do look nice in HD and tell the stories a lot better than in previous games where you would simply have text and an image. Whilst one or two of the voice actors for the game are a bit weak for the most part the voices fit the characters in question.
Like previous Street Fighter games, Street Fighter IV revolves around two characters fighting it out on a 2D plane in various stages based in different locations around the world. Street Fighter IV has chosen to stay with the tried and tested six button control scheme seen in the other games; three punches and three kicks. The game has been simplified to more closely resemble Street Fighter II as a lot of the fans of the series were disappointed with the complexity of Street Fighter III, however the game is far from shallow, there is still a lot of room for big combos and skilful dodges with the addition of cancels and focus attacks, your possibility for variation is almost endless.
Each character has their own unique move set allowing you to pummel your opponent in a variety of interesting ways. These are pulled off by performing certain button and direction combinations to unleash your attack, a large amount of characters have simple combinations, however, other characters require a bit more skill to pull off. With a large selection of specific special moves, grabs and unique moves at your disposal, you can really mix up a match and come up with a good strategy for your character, but what really makes things interesting are the super combos and ultra combos; these are attacks which require one of two bars to be filled, your super meter charges by attacking your opponent whilst your ultra meter will fill by being attacked. When you pull these off, you will get a small animation similar to the Dragonball games in which you pummel your opponent into the ground, often with devastating effects.
A wide range of modes are available in the game including the standard arcade mode in which you fight a series of matches before fighting the new final boss, Seth. Prepare to get incredibly angry as Seth is quite possibly the hardest final boss in any of the Street Fighter games; you will get huge satisfaction when you do finally beat him though. Next is Versus mode in which you can play a single match against the computer or with a friend locally. Challenge mode features a series of different modes, each with multiple difficulties and levels including Time Attack where you have to defeat a set number of opponents within the time limit and under varying conditions, Trial mode gives you moves to pull off, these gradually increase to complex combos that will require expert precision and timing to pull off and finally Survival Mode where you will have to fight as many opponents as possible on a single life bar. Network mode allows you to play against other fighters via the internet and Gallery mode allows you to view your unlocked artwork and videos.
Street Fighter IV uses a fairly unique graphic style, whilst the game is 3D the graphic style retains the feel of the old 2D sprites giving a partially Cel-shaded look. Whilst the character models and textures aren’t the best on the PlayStation 3 the game looks fantastic in motion with a variety of effects and fast paced animation. The game also features a wide variety of humorous facial expressions that are guaranteed to amuse you whilst you unleash yourself unto your opponent.
Each stage in Street Fighter IV has its own music; all of which fit nicely with the theme of the game and will keep you hyped up for the fight. As always the game features a commentator but this time round he has more involvement with the game. Instead of just announcing when to fight or who won he will commentate on the match as you play it, although some may find pleasure in the fact that there is an option to turn him off. Character voices for the most part are well done and suit the characters with a range of stereotypical accents. Japanese voices can be unlocked for each character by completing arcade mode as them. Completing arcade mode as specific characters is also the way to unlock new characters, colours and taunts.
Street Fighter IV features an online mode as mentioned earlier; this allows you to take on opponents near and far using an internet connection. There are multiple options for playing an online battle, these are Ranked, allowing you to win or lose battle points depending on how you fare in the battle and Player matches, for when you don’t want to risk precious battle points or just want to get some practice in nothing is at stake. As well as being able to chose to play online from the main menu, there is an option to allow fight requests during arcade mode, this means that you can fight single player on arcade and be challenged by anyone online at any time, this system works generally quite well but can be frustrating if you are about to win a fight and get challenged. Playing online is fairly lag free, however you will always get a laggy match from time to time, these can be quite troublesome, but until everyone has super fast broadband connections, it cannot be helped. Either way, expect to be bombarded with Hadoukens and Shoryukens from Ryu and Ken players.
Street Fighter veterans and newcomers alike will enjoy this latest instalment in the series allowing for enough depth for experienced players whilst making it simple enough to pick up for newbies. Whilst it has its flaws, Street Fighter IV is a solid game and the sequel that fans have been waiting for.
8.7/10
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